BEAUTIFUL BERTHA

It's been no secret
that Bertha and I've been living together since '82. We've just celebrated
anniversary number 18. Though our relationship has had its ups and downs,
which at times got me really!! frazzled, in retrospect I was mostly to
blame for the bumps in the road. She has been faithful to a sin, taken all
sorts of abuse, and has seldom let me down. As a matter of fact, when I
most needed her, she pulled me through many of my toughest straits. Most
of the pickles we got into were of my making. On second thought, all were,
though my sons did help.

Most of the time,
she just sat there, obediently waiting for my signal, ever yearning for
more attention, but resigned to whatever time she could get. Like the time
I was up the river, and I mean waaaay up, like 2000 kilometers up. Ever
hear of Bratislava in Slovakia. Don't ever ever consider going there. It's
a monument to the worst in Russian planning and architecture. Even worse
than Belgrade. And we were there. New Chance’s mast rested secured on
deck. Bertha, and only Bertha, had to get us out of there and lead us back
to civilization. There were no other options. And she pulled the gig off.
Her purr puts me to sleep. The last time it did, it cost me over $75,000.
And she almost drowned. For the fourth time. Let me tell you how we met.

Bertha was born in
the UKas a Perkins 4.108
diesel engine and came to the USA for finishing. Thanks to a very good
friend who helped make the installation possible, she became part of
Siboney during April 1982. A buddy from my teenage days in Havana, McCoy,
surprised me one day with Bertha.. When I first saw her in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida, in April 1982,
she was all dolled up in sky blue, feet extended, ready for her new home
aboard Siboney. She caused nary a stir as she slipped into her spot
aboard, right next to the skip's bunk, made herself at home, and went to
work. This is her story, and her travels around the world, from the Golden
Horn to Cape Horn, across five oceans, 40,000 miles of blue water and 4000
kilometers of inland canals. This is the story of our life together.

Bertha started out
as a Perkins 4.108, 40 HP diesel engine. In the States she was dressed up
and changed into a Westerbeke 40, though her heart and vitals all remained
English.. One click of the button and she purred. A day later she took us
down the New River and into the Atlantic Ocean for the trip down to Miami.

She felt just at
home gunkholing in the Bahamas or punching across the Gulf Stream. All she
ever asked for was clean air and fuel. With no more, she would run
forever. And run she did until my young son Joe, 17, with Bertha just
under a year, tried to drown her. He had taken Siboney out for a sail in
Biscayne Bay, off of Miami, with a bunch of high school buddies. When they
returned, Joe pumped the bilge but failed to close the shutoff valve. With
the bilge pump outlet under the water level, Siboney slowly sank to the
bottom.

Not noticed until
morning, the skylight, at low tide, remained about a foot underwater. A
rental outfit provided two, two-inch pumps and with Jim, Joe and several
other culprits, I ventured into the art of salvage. The pumps kept trying
to suck up all the loose stuff in the bilge as Jim dove through the diesel
to collect and clear the debris. Two hours later it was obvious the
two-inch pumps weren't going to do it and were replaced by two three inch
pumps.

As the pumps shot
bilge water into the air, Joe and Jim plugged with towels and sheets all
external crevices, which would admit water. A half hour passed with no
results. Forty-five minutes. Then, all of a sudden, Siboney shook like a
shaggy sodden dog, wiggled her stern, and popped out of the water. Pumped
dry, I removed the starter and alternator and tossed both into the
swimming pool. With the oil plug removed, the salt water drained into the
bilge. Through the injector openings, we filled her with diesel fuel. I
shackled son Joe to Bertha and ordered him to keep her turning her over
manually.

Batteries exploded
and had to be replaced, as did many of the electrics. Thanks to the hot
Florida sun, the boat dried out, as did the starter and alternator. Once
replaced, Bertha came back to life, now happier working out of a jerry jug
instead of dirty fuel tanks.

A year later Joe did
it again, same place, same way. Up it came as before, upchucked all the
bad stuff that had collected inside, bitched a little, and roared back to
life, only to land, six months later, hard aground off Crandon Park on Key
Biscayne. Bill Jr. this time had taken the boat with a dozen friends, boys
and girls, out for a picnic at Crandon. Other kids came by car but Bill
and his crew had all the food. Entering at night, it was easy for Bill Jr.
to go aground. As the tide dropped, the girls' screams intensified until
they all abandoned ship and headed for the real party.

Son Joe, who pumped
gas at a local marina, got a call at 7 a.m. from one of his buddies that
Siboney was aground off Key Biscayne. Joe called me and off I sped to scan
the 5-mile beach in hopes the news was not true. Sure enough, there was
Siboney, high, dry and abandoned. Wading out, I found Bertha under water,
the anchor straight down from the bow, just where the kids had dropped it.
I reset the anchor, proceeded to bucket the water out and wait for the
tide to turn. Bertha got back home, a bit bedraggled, but ready, after a
little TLC to get back to work.

Bertha saw most of
the Bahamas, from Walker and Green Turtle Cays in the Abacos to Georgetown
in the Exumas, and loved it. By 1989, now 6 years old, and with a 4 year
'round the world cruise in the making, she was replaced with a new Perkins
4.108. When no one sprung for Bertha, she ended up in a small dark, dank,
closet where she rested serenely until 1993.

The next chapter is
history. Siboney, with its brand new Perkins sailed into the sunset,
through the Panama Canal and 1200 miles West until it met a bunch of pilot
whales. These, four hours later, uptight about this big object in their
midst, obviously a large whale ready to molest their young, attacked. The
new Perkins went to the bottom, nearly 13,000 feet down. When I returned
to Miami after my 66 day small boat cruise, all of son Joe's buddies were
pissed. "Gee, Mr. Butler”, they chorused, “Joe sank the boat, but in 10
feet of water. You went and sank our boat in 10,000 feet. That wasn't very
smart, Mr. Butler." Joe's rat pack had a valid point.

I visited Bertha
often in 1990 and 1991 in her small cage like closet near the Miami
airport. Never heard her grumble, but I could tell she wasn't happy. She
leaked oil on the floor. I tried to sell her, but got no takers. The truth
is, I didn't try all that hard.

In 1992 I bought New
Chance and sailed out of Miami just a couple of weeks before Andrew plowed
through South Dade County. All boats on either side of where New Chance
moored at Dinner Key sank or were blown to some other part of the Grove.
We were in the Azores, with engine problems (what else is new), when we
heard about the disaster. The Volkswagen diesel aboard my new boat and I
weren't getting along worth a damn. The bloody thing wouldn't run. A
mechanic in the Azores got her going and we took off for Spain. Ten miles
out a loud clank clunk announced the demise of Volksy. So, being a
sailboat, we sailed on. I abandoned ship as soon as we arrived in Puerto
Cherry and left Joe (in eternal debt to me) with the job of making it
work. Which he did. For a while. Just as soon as we cleared the Canary
Islands she quit for good, which made little difference since we were in a
sailboat race. By the time we got back to Miami, I was through with
Volksy. We just didn't speak the same language. I yanked it out and sold
it. Prices for a new engine were ridiculous and most people I talked to
agreed that the Perkins 4.108 was still the best engine ever built. So I
sent it up to West Palm Beach for a full overhaul then slipped it into New
Chance early in 1993, just in time for the trip to San Juan.

Bertha loved her new
surroundings. They were roomier than on Siboney, and the skip still bunked
nearby. She was all primed and ready to go when we sailed in mid 1994 for
the Panama Canal, into the Pacific Ocean and headed for Cape Horn. Golly,
did she sop up the fuel. Like the stink potters, our biggest job turned
into figuring out where to find a fuel stop.

Bertha chugged along
just fine when the breeze died, which was often. She took us through 1500
miles of Chile's inland canals, down Magellan, into the Beagle Strait and
off to Cape Horn. At nine p.m., when we were 6 miles from Cape Horn, the
West wind turned into a full gale. Tucked behind three islands, we
struggled to reach a sheltered anchorage, 2 miles distant. With almost no
sail flying, it was up to Bertha to get us there. With one mile to go,
Bertha coughed and stopped. Chuck and I bled the air out of Bertha and
after two dozen cranks, she came back to life. Four more times Bertha
stopped. Each time, as we bled fuel, some of it would spray on the cabin
sole to produce a surface as slick as ice. Enough of this. I got a fuel
jug, changed the fuel line to draw out of the jug, and solved the problem.
Later we found one of the rubber hoses had developed a pinhole allowing
air in. That bugger Murphy will do it every time.

All night we
struggled against wind, rocks, and total darkness. Dawn was never more
welcome. At first light we saw Cape Horn, now 4 miles due South. We had
come 8500 miles. 4 miles to go. With the crew primed and Bertha ready to
go, we headed out from behind the small islands that had been protecting
us and into monumental waves. Towers of water washed over the boat, the
mast nearly touching the departing monsters. Ten minutes of this and I
turned back, scared. In the relative comfort of the lee produced by the
islands, I would forge courage and jibe around anew. Three more times we
tried and three times we were nearly overwhelmed. To go on would be to
gamble all. I gave up and headed home.

Bertha took us up
the coast to Buenos Aires, Rio and into the doldrums, where the starter
died. For seven days and seven nights Reiner and I drifted, pouring rain
shattering our shattered nerves. Bertha just sat there, anxious, ready to
pop over. After dissecting, soldering, sanding, drying in the over, and
otherwise using the sum total of our mechanical skills on the starter, we
ended up just sitting there, collecting water, listening to all 60 gallons
of fuel slosh. After 8 long days and nights the East wind slowly built to
propel us to Barbados where sons Bill and Joe awaited with a new starter.

1997 was Bertha's
biggest test. With Chuck and Mike aboard, she helped us across the
doldrums on the 26 day leg from San Juan to Horta. Ten days with in a full
gale on the way to the English Channel got the starter wet which forced us
to put into Weymouth, England. A few days later in Holland new crew
reported aboard and when "New Chance’s" mast came down and was placed upon
heavy brackets on deck, Bertha was all we had. She would have to take us
the 4000 kilometers on her own to Istanbul. Going up the Rhine against a 4
knot current brought out Bertha's best. She loved it. When her
transmission began to lose fluid we stopped at Rhine River fuel barges and
bought oil by the 5 gallon pail. The Main and the Main-Donau Canal took us
into the Danube, which for a change flowed at 4 to 6 knots with us. Lynz,
Vienna and Budapest buzzed right by but just we were passing Bratislava in
Slovakia I suddenly sobered up. What in the hell are you doing, Bill
Butler. You are asking Bertha to take you 2000 kilometers to the Black Sea
across Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria where no one speaks English and much
worse, have never heard of an engine remotely like Bertha. And with the
current at 5 knots plus, forget about going back. You've really done it
now. Bertha dies and we're stuck. We’ll have to pole down like Huck Finn.
We're up the bloody river now! Yet, Bertha behaved like the queen she is.
Never a whimper. The heavy load was off Bertha's back when we reached
Agigae on the Black Sea where with the help of some new found Romanian
friends, New Chance was once again converted into a sailing machine. We
headed home to San Juan across the Black Sea, Dardanelles, Istambul,
Greece, Malta and Sicily.

Near Tunisia, with
the water shallowing, the wind light, the current setting us towards
shore, Bertha's transmission packed it in. In Mayorca we took the drive
unit to a French pirate who dismantled the gear and then said he could not
fix it because he could not guarantee the job. Unable to convince him that
all I needed was a transmission to yield another 100 hours of service and
would never be back to claim a warranty failure, I yielded to his
piratical skills and bought the used transmission he wanted to get rid of,
stuck it onto Bertha, and off we went.

New Chance sailed
well with a following wind as we approached Gibraltar, now less than ten
miles away. We’d had Bertha ticking over all afternoon for fear that if we
stopped her Murphy would step in to keep her starting and the entrance to
Gib requires engine power. Busy piloting, I hadn’t checked the oil level.
With a low-pitched clunk, she stopped on her own. My attempts to turn her
over were met with a dull thunk. We sailed into the inner yacht harbor and
made a crash landing at Her Majesty’s Customs dock where we sold our hard
luck story and were allowed to spend the night.

After using all of
my diagnostic skills, I told my story to the chief mechanic at Shepherds,
hoping he had some kind of magic wand. "Take it out and we'll fix it"
didn't cut it. Bertha goes and I may never see her again.

In the Canary
Islands we re-lived the Gibraltar scene and sailed on to Puerto Rico, 3000
miles down wind. In San Juan, with the help of my good friend Duke, a
master mechanic, we stripped Bertha down to the last nut with all work
done aboard New Chance. That's when I picked up my degree in psychology.
He started with "you're the only person I can confide in" and while we
struggled with Bertha's innards, he told me how he had a wife with four
children in the Dominican Republic but is married to a lady in Puerto Rico
and has three children with her but is in love with a lady with four
daughters, two each from two marriages, and who don't get along with each
other. I figure it took us 12 hours to dismantle the engine and about 20
to put it al back together. All the while, covered with grease, I gave
advice to the lovelorn; RUN FOR THE HILLS was the best advice I could
think up. All back together, Bertha ran like new, which for all practical
purposes, she was.

On April 15, 2000,
we headed for Norway under a strong East wind. Bertha had refused to start
for a week but with the task of provisioning, and forty other items on the
critical list, she was left for last. She remained in one of her bitchy
spells, which of course follows my paying attention to too many other
parts of the boat. With a loud "To hell with you Bertha" we maneuvered out
of the slip with muscle power, raised all sail to a 20-knot East wind, and
blasted off. Three days later the wind died and Bertha came to life. Off
Cape Hatteras, before and after, Bertha would cough and die. Each time,
I'd bleed air and start her up. In New Jersey, son Jim found the cause, a
leaky fuel lift pump. We changed it and Bertha never ran better.

She purred all the
way to Halifax. On June 28 as we sailed away towards Ireland, one of my
crew ran New Chance on the shore of Nova Scotia. Ten hours later Bertha
was submerged, my sailboat a total wreck. Hanging onto New Chance off the
Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, pounding surf pummeling her surroundings,
Bertha kissed dear Life adieu. Six days of punishment, the first three at
90 degrees, had her gasping for life as she fought the eight-foot tides,
which luckily pushed her ever higher up on the beach. There she lay,
abandoned by her master who had returned to Puerto Rico, but surrounded by
a host of newfound friends. One, Hein “Chain Saw” Rijnbeek, hiked a mile
over the rocky coastline to visit Bertha daily. And Bertha had talked to
him, pleading to be saved, for a new life… until Hein, alone. freed Bertha
of her bond to New Chance, hauled her the 50 feet up the steep, rocky
beach, hoisted her up into a cart and dragged her to his home… all 500
pounds of Bertha. Days later, Hein gave Bertha a checkup at an engine
repair shop, hit the starter button and Bertha, to every ones surprise,
roared.

In October 2000, John
Hilpman, a GE buddy who lives in Woolwich, Maine, hopped into his truck
and drove/ferried to Halifax, loaded Bertha onto his truck and brought her
back to Woolwich together with all that was salvageable from New Chance.
Using the heavy-duty bed Hein had prepared, John crated Bertha and all the
rest of the stuff, found a truck, which delivered Bertha shipside in
Jacksonville. A week or two later, Bertha reposed at Pepe Amadors shop in
San Juan.

In May, 2001, Pepe
kindly lifted Bertha off her high perch, loaded her onto his pickup truck,
and delivered it to the Marina. Brute force got Bertha onto a dolly, and
with the help of many, pushed alongside Poseidon, owned by Valentin and
Julie, a Bulgarian couple I had met in Malta in 1997 and who had built
their boat of ferro-cement to escape to the outside world. In 2000 they
had dumped their old air cooled Russian engine into the deeps off Grenada.
I told them Bertha was theirs.They accepted. Oh, she was a sight!!! Not at her best. Rusty,
dirty, sand all over… but then, she had had a tough trip. Valentin
scrubbed, brushed, sanded, washed and primed her until she looked as good
as on her first day. On October 5 was to be the official Transfer
Ceremonies. Valentin would start the engine in the presence of New Chance
crew and the engine was his. Bertha didn’t thing about it twice. Started
on the first crank and roared away now ready to take Poseidon to new
uncharted waters.